Issue Brief 1: Land Issues in South Asia: Assesing SAARC

This paper calls attention to the ambiguity of SAARC’s position
on the importance of land rights, as well as to the absence
of an official declaration from SAARC on land rights and issues
as these relate to farmers in the region. Judging by its official
documents, SAARC has no clear profile of the poor in South Asia.
At the minimum, SAARC needs to recognize the interrelatedness
of poverty alleviation, agricultural production, food security and
land rights/access to land. SAARC has yet to implement a program
that reflects the links among these concepts.